


parergon

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Admiral Phasma, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, Exes, F/M, Finn Skywalker, Force-Sensitive Finn, Jedi Finn, Past Relationship(s), Republic Never Fell AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-20 18:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9505022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Even the military had rules against fraternization. He’d—they’d—learned that the hard way. And it was difficult. To go about his life and pretend what they shared wasn’t something worth pursuing?Better to have never started anything at all.So he smiled instead. It was better than the frown that threatened to form.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bittersnake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittersnake/gifts).



Finn didn’t usually make it his business to linger outside the Council chambers, especially not when he had better things to do, like prep for his next mission or spend a few hours in the crèche with the younglings or even eat his midday meal, but even he made exceptions for special occasions. And Admiral Phasma of the Grand Republic Navy applying for an audience with the Council—receiving it—and then promptly throwing it away because she’d never met a diplomatic phrase she didn’t scorn constituted a special occasion.

“You could try massaging them a little,” he suggested, pressing his palms outward in demonstration, “before you accuse them of treason.” _Or you could come to me,_ he thought. It would’ve been easier for them all if she had. “Might’ve kept a few feathers unruffled in there.”

“I accused no one of treason.”

Barking out a laugh, Finn wagged his finger at her. “That’s where you’re wrong.” And it was precisely why he liked Phasma as much as he did. He might have been the newest addition to the Council, but he’d never heard or seen someone show so much disdain for so many revered individuals in such a short span of time before. Even Master Qui-Gon Jinn’s run-ins, legendary even today, never quite reached the peaks Phasma had conquered within twenty minutes of her arrival at the Temple.

Extraordinary.

Not that Finn could admit as much. He would have _liked_ to, perhaps, but even he knew the value of propriety. And publicly defaming his colleagues wasn’t his style anyway.

Regardless, he’d missed her. More than he thought possible for someone who, once upon a time, couldn’t stand her for more than a handful of minutes at a time. And then there was… well, the other thing. The thing they didn’t really talk about.

At least his father had seemed amused, blue eyes sparkling as he’d smothered a smile throughout her tirade. “We’ll take this report under advisement,” he’d said, bringing every bit of the Skywalker family’s sense of decorum to bear, which admittedly… wasn’t much. His eyes had cut to Finn’s and he’d nodded and none of the rest of the Jedi on the Council—too disgruntled at being called spineless—seemed to notice. They hadn’t needed a Force-bond for each to know what the other was thinking, but it hadn’t hurt.

 _The more things change,_ Luke had though. And Finn had shared the sentiment. From his studies, the pre-reform Jedi had faced a moment of similar recalcitrance to see what was right in front of their faces. Thanks to a prescient few, the Republic had survived.

And it seemed like another prescient few would have to help the Republic along now, too. If Phasma was correct and there _was_ a rogue dark side user operating in the Outer Rim, it was up to the Jedi to investigate.

 _Do you think Ben would defend me in the Republic courts if I get myself into trouble,_ Finn had asked through the bond, getting the very distinct feeling that his father expected _him_ to do the dirty work this time. Though Luke didn’t articulate it, Finn got a strong sense of the concept that this was a familial rite of passage and it was his turn. _You’ll make him defend Phasma, too, right?_ She was putting herself as much at risk as he was—probably even more given how the military took such a hands-off approach to Outer Rim worlds—and she wouldn’t have Jedi to put pressure on the authorities if worst came to worse.

 _You always did think ahead,_ Luke had replied. _But maybe try to stay out of trouble before you rope Ben into anything, huh?_

“And what would you have me do?” Phasma asked. She crossed her arms, her uniform tightening across her biceps, the cape around her shoulders resettling down her back. Finn preferred the armor she wore in the field, but Jedi weren’t generally supposed to have preferences of that sort, so he kept the thought to himself. That was one part of the old Code he understood and respected. And kept to since the person he truly wanted to be with didn’t want to be with him.

Even the military had rules against fraternization. He’d— _they’d_ —learned that the hard way. And it was difficult. To go about his life and pretend what they shared wasn’t something worth pursuing?

Better to have never started anything at all.

So he smiled instead. It was better than the frown that threatened to form.

 _It’s a good thing you’ve got allies even if you refuse to recognize them, that’s all I’ve got to say_. “Come to me next time,” he said, fiddling with the hem of his tunic, as offhand as he could sound. _Allies. It may be more complicated than that even now, even after all this time_. “We might actually get something done.”

Phasma’s blonde brow arched and she sneered for good measure and perhaps he deserved it, but probably not as much as she thought he did. “You believe me.”

They didn’t talk about it much—or at all, but they’d both gone through the war together, and she still hadn’t forgiven him for leaving the Navy to join the Jedi. Once the immediate hostilities had ceased and the Centrists had returned to the fold and the words _treaty_ and _peace_ were being thrown around in the Senate, he’d thought it time to direct his attention to building that peace the Senate wavered and waffled about.

He didn’t blame her for silence though; it had felt a little bit like a betrayal on his end, too, like he was leaving behind unfinished business with her despite never telling her anything less than the truth. He’d been something like her protégé and something like a reluctant confidant and, just once, something even more than that.

Their relationship was one of pushing and pulling and denial—so much denial. They could power a world with the denial they’d built up. But his father had asked it of him and he’d long ago refused to not do everything in his power to help where he could do the most good.

For a long time, it had been the Navy. And for an even longer time now, the Jedi. That was the truth he’d told himself every day since he’d resigned his commission. It wasn’t until he’d achieved the rank of master—and never had he felt less like one than on that day—that he began to question that again.

No wonder she disdained him. She had always hated vacillation. And no doubt she saw his whole life as one long vacillation. There was no making her understand that vacillation was not weakness. Finding new purpose? It wasn’t weakness.

He peered up at her, hands on his hips, and studied her face, the smooth, unimpressed line her mouth had become since that brief display of distaste a moment ago, the ragged scar that still marked her temple and struck out across her forehead, and the pick-sharp flash of her eyes as she realized that he was scrutinizing her. “I do,” he said.

It wasn’t his job to make her like him no matter how much easier it would make things for him and how much he might prefer it if she did.

But it _was_ his job to protect the Republic and the people of this galaxy.

If he trusted nothing else, he trusted that Phasma was dedicated to the former, too, at the very least. Making her like him again was a tertiary concern at best.

And if she was right about this threat, Finn refused to be the one who hadn’t heeded the warning because of a personal history more extensive than most people knew.

“It’s unfortunate that no one else does,” she said, never willing to settle, not even for him—and, oh, he had to strangle that thought out before it led to more painful places. “Believe me, that is to say.”

 _Now you’re just trying to hurt me_ , he thought, allowing himself a half-measure of forced amusement and an equal, more easily attained, amount of disappointment. _It’s not going to work_. “You’d be surprised.”

“Would I?” she asked.

“Come on.” He clasped her on the arm and squeezed the rough, thick wool of her uniform. Now _that_ he didn’t miss one bit. “It’ll be just like old times.”

And though she leveled a droll, unimpressed stare his way, he thought he saw a flicker of interest in the icy chill of her eyes, a thawing that Finn chose to take as a good sign, and a flare of pain that maybe Finn had meant for her to feel. She’d always been cool and he’d always been something else and it worked for them when she let it. And it would take a _lot_ for her to let it now, he knew it, but if she was going to snap at him…

He knew how to snap back.

“Where do we start?” he asked, pressing the advantage.

She just stared at him some more for a moment, her lips pursed, before she said, quiet, “Jakku.” It sounded a lot like victory.

“Jakku, huh?” Finn replied, nodding. He knew nothing about Jakku, not even where in the wide Outer Rim it might’ve been located. A Jedi, he’d learned, couldn’t know everything no matter how much they wanted to pretend otherwise. And some of them did. He could attest to that. “I bet it’s a nice place.”

And even if he was wrong about it, he couldn’t regret the chance to work with Phasma again, maybe make things right between them, maybe find their way back.

She wouldn’t have risked accepting help from him if she was that opposed to seeing him.

He really had missed her.

And he thought maybe she had missed him, too.


End file.
